00:03:00
(It’s all right. I hope you can hear Me all the way, can you? Come forward a little bit, perhaps.)

00:04:10
Today is a very joyous that all of us are here in Turkey, to celebrate the Puja of Fatima’s. As you know about Her that She was the daughter of Mohammed Sahib and was married to Ali, and She had two children, Hassan and Hussein, who were ultimately killed in Karbala by the fanatics, who were that time called themselves Sunnis. All this happened because there were fanaticism, and the fanaticism that makes person thinks always that they are on the right and they have every right to be angry, to persuade, to convince another party, another person. And these fanaticisms grew since long – it’s not a new thing. It is so obvious now that our main problem in this world is of fanaticism.

Fatima lost Her two children, and She was the embodiment of Gruha Lakshmi. She resides in our Left Nabhi. So for all the diseases that are connected with the spleen, all the problems that are connected with your Left Nabhi can be only corrected by Fatima. So you have to keep Fatima awakened within yourself. That we are here in the Islamic culture, we can say this is place of Islamic culture; and in the Islamic culture a housewife was given a very, very important place.

At the time of Mohammed Sahib there were struggles and fights and wars going on between different tribes. As a result many, many young men were killed. Only quite old people survived, and also so many women. This is the reason why Mohammed said that “You can marry four wives, five wives; but you cannot allow them to remain unmarried or they will have extramarital relationships. That will be the greatest fall for Islam, for that religion.” So He understood that unless and until women are kept absolutely chaste, absolutely pure, there cannot be the Kingdom of God. In Sanskrit there’s a saying, “Yatra narya pujyante, tatra ramante devata”: meaning “Where the women are respected, are worshipped and they are worshipful” – not that they are to be worshipped, but they are respectable – “there only exists the Kingdom of God.”

So, so much responsibility is on women. So from Fatima’s life we have to know that She did not go out of Her house and She remained a housewife, and She made Her two children grow up in such a manner that they had to fight the war against fanaticism. Her husband also was there. This is how a woman of a housewife is shown to be so powerful that though she’s in the house, though she’s – looks to be just a mother, but how powerful she is!

But these days a new type of ideas have come up. Men also have been very nasty and very aggressive with women. As a result we find there’s a big opposition to men, and a kind of a big rift has been created between men and women. Also the men, the way they started becoming licentious, perverted, going to bad women, the good women also thought, “Why not we also become like that?” and they also started doing wrong things which they should not have done. That’s how the whole society crumbled down.

Now, the men are responsible for the politics and the economics and also the nation as administrators, but women are responsible for the society. Whether she’s in the house or she’s outside, whether she’s working in the house or outside, she is responsible for the maintenance of the society. And there it looks as sometimes to a woman that she’s dominated, that her husband dominates her, that the husband’s family dominates her, but it’s the quality of a woman that brings up the level of the society – not only the level, but also in the family she is then respected. It’s a very important role as a housewife; perhaps we never realize it.

Now we see so many lights here, electricity is there running. But what is the source of this electricity? Is it not much more important than these lights? So men are nothing but, we can say, the kinetic energy, but what is the potential is the woman of the house. But these days it’s becoming a very funny situation. I was surprised when I went to Italy also that how women have made themself cheap. And they want to look attractive to every man. What is the need? It’s a joyless pursuit into which men are going, and women are making themselves absolutely cheap. This cheapness of women is not going to give them any strength or joy. I know one feels very unhappy the way men treat them, but you must have your own personality, you must have your own understanding that you are a woman, you are shakti, and nobody can suppress the shakti. But if you do not keep to your own personality or to your chastity, then you cannot achieve your goal in life. And your goal in life is to give power to your son, to your husband, to all the society the woman gives power.

I’m also a woman, as you know, and I also have a family. With all the powers that I have, I never showed them that I have those powers. I always listened to My husband, obeyed him though sometimes he was very unreasonable also. And he also came from a society which was more Islamic-oriented. But that was just a joke for Me, because I thought, “He’s just like a child and I have to be very patient with him.” He always says that because of My powers he earned everything in life. Always, in the presence of everyone he says so. I don’t know that part, but definitely I feel very satisfied with My own married life. I never think the way other people think that we must try to dominate the husband, we must fight him, we must have a right to do this. Our right is within ourselves, within our powers.

Also the men must realize that they have to respect women. I mean, not to such an extent that she tells you to do something wrong, and you just get lost with this – that’s not the way. That’s slavishness. Men have to be men. It in no way means the women are dominated by men – I don’t treat it that way; because if you have your own powers, ultimately whatever may be the husband, he’ll have to come and understand what you are. He’ll have to know what you are. I have seen it many-a-times in My own lifetime that it has done that way. I would never say anything. Supposing he gets angry, I would keep quiet. All right. After all he has to fight outside and he has to take out temper on Me – that he couldn’t do: if he does this to others they will beat him, so it’s better he takes out temper on Me. And I never, never felt that way that he’s dominating Me. Only thing I thought, he’s taking out his temper.

But I’ve seen that whenever I said something to him, he thought about it. In his lifetime I’ve taken eleven decisions; and all these decisions he still remembers one by one and knows that it was very, very important. Other things I never tell him what to do. Whatever was most important is the principle. Now, he also realized that I have a very important mission. So he gave Me money, he gave Me time, gave Me all freedom. But first I had to establish Myself as a very sensible, devoted wife.

The men as a whole are very different type, you must understand. They are extroverts, and whatever the women care too much for, they could not do. It’s all right; because women and men are complementary. Like Ali was there outside working everything out, while Fatima Bi in the house, home, who never went out, but he knew his source of energy from where it was coming. Because women were never respected as shakti, they started getting drifted into this Western modern ideas that “we have to fight men, they are problematic, they are troubling us and we should take revenge.” That’s how society cannot work out. Responsibility of the women is much greater than that of men. Men have to just go to offices, work it out something, come back. Women have to lifelong generate the energy for the growth of the children, the protection of the husband, for all the sensible things that she has to do. That’s why in India we say, “A woman is to be absolutely respected, and she has to be respectable.” Moreover it is not only in India, I’ve seen it all over that women are always respected if they are housewives.

For example, I go with My husband to some function. I’m respected as much as he is respected. For example, his deputy won’t be respected as I am respected, his secretary won’t be respected – no one. I, as his wife, is respected the same way because I’m his wife. Nobody looks down upon Me because I’m somebody’s wife. Is all over it is like this.

I’ll give you a case of a lady I knew. She used to think she’s a very smart person, you know, always looked after her body and just to be thin and all that, and she wanted to attract all the men and all kinds of things she would do. She would wear, you see, jeans and, you know, quite old lady. And her husband was a big man, he was a chief cabinet secretary, very senior to us. So one day we were all invited for a dinner. So she was not there. So many asked them, so many people, “Where is your wife, where is your wife?”

He said, “I don’t know where she is. She was to come here.”

I was also thinking where is she, where is she gone, because there was a seat for her, a special seat. So before sitting for the dinner I went for, I went into the bathroom. And there the poor thing was sitting on one corner. I said, “Why are you sitting here?”

So she said, “They made me sit here. I don’t know what to do.”

So I brought her out. I said, “Why did you make her sit there?” And she was thinking she’s very smart, she’s done her hair nicely, she’s looking like an actress.

“Oh, is she the wife?”

I said, “Yes.”

“Oh, my God! We thought she’s the secretary. How could she be? She has no dignity of her own, the way she was dressed stupidly. How can we believe that she’s the wife? She has no dignity as a wife of a Indian gentleman so highly placed.” And poor thing was sitting there for half-an-hour, smoking. They couldn’t believe it. Then they asked Me, “Are You sure she’s his wife?”

I said, “Yes, I’m sure.”

I mean, she came to the table, nobody got up for her. And they still thought, all the rest, she’s the secretary who has come. Then we had to tell them “that’s his wife.” She was thinking she’s a smart young lady, you know; at that old age behaving stupidly.

So even in the West a woman is respected if she’s a good housewife. Anywhere, she is respected. I was surprised also that I knew somebody very highly placed, a minister in the cabinet of England, and he was supposed to be little wayward and nobody would take notice of him. Nobody would. “Don’t look at him!”

I was not so good at the scandals that they had in the all diplomatic circles, but I said that “Why don’t you talk to this man?”

“No, not worth it.”

I said, “Why?”

They said, “He’s horrible. He is not a good man.”

“Yes, but why? What has he done?”

They said, “He’s a flirt, and he is looking at other women and he’s doing all kinds of things,” and they told stories about him. My God! Such a big man like a minister – why is he behaving like this? Like a stupid donkey, he is going about … Nobody would shake hands with him. Even men would not look at him.

Now, of course, a new society is forming of all these stupid people. That’s different. But one Sahaja yogi who will visit these places will be amazed how stupid they are. They can make it out. All of them catch on their left Nabhi, whether they are women or men. But it’s more dangerous for men if they have a wife like that. Now, the left Nabhi if it catches, what happens? What diseases you get? The first and foremost is blood cancer. With the left Nabhi you can get blood cancer. Women think they can dominate their husband, they can do this to their husband, they can put them right, but they don’t know they are causing a serious disease like blood cancer.

I know of somebody who was suffering from blood cancer, but we cured him and then we discovered his left Nabhi was still bad. Again and again he was getting relapse. Then we found out it was his wife. She was such a dangerous woman for him. And he wouldn’t leave her, wouldn’t leave her. So I told him, “I will not treat you again if you live with that woman. Better throw her out or you send her somewhere else, yes. But if you are going to live with this woman, I’m not going to treat you.”

He also called her and I told her on her face that “You’re a very dominating, horrible shrew woman, and if you try to torture your husband, he cannot be cured.”

But she went on. And then, the end result was horrible, horrible, horrible. He developed a big spleen like that, all of it was taken out, and doctors told that “within six months you’ll be finished.” So on both the cases, I would say, the wife tried to dominate the husband, and husband getting attached to that wife still. It’s recent case I’m telling you.

Now, we are husband and wife because we love each other, we are complementary: woman is a woman, man is a man. Men should not expect women to be like you –very fast; and women should not expect men to be like you – very, I should say, noble. They are qualities of a woman and the qualities of a man. But the greatest power of a woman is her chastity. If her chastity is disturbed, then she is a dangerous person, very dangerous. She can not only harm her husband, but also her children, her society.

We come from a culture which is very akin to Islamic culture also. Indian culture is like that. In the Indian culture women respect their chastity more than anything in this world. They can give up everything, but not their chastity. And once …. There’s a story I must tell you, very interesting, about a very beautiful woman called Padmini. She was the wife of a king. And there was a horrible Muslim king who wanted to see this woman, because he heard she was very beautiful. See, this is, was a funny thing. And she came, and he came to that kingdom and he said, “I must look at this lady, otherwise I’ll destroy the whole kingdom.”

Now people said, “This he can’t do, she’s our queen. She can’t, he can’t see our queen like that.”

She just thought, “All right. He need not see me, but he might see my reflection.”

So she stood before a mirror and he saw her reflection. Then he became even more mad and he said, “I must have this woman. If you don’t give her to me, then I’ll destroy all of you.”

Imagine a king doing all this nonsense for a woman – shows what a useless fellow he was. So he brought all his army, everything, and settled down near the fort where these people were, and sent a message that “if you don’t send this lady to me, then I’m going to attack.”

They were not prepared, didn’t know what to do, so they said that “Let us go and fight him. We cannot allow our queen to be given to them. This is a question of our prestige.”

They took a hundred palanquin. Do you understand palanquin? They took a hundred palanquin. Now in those hundred palanquins there were four warriors sitting with these arms and their machines, and there were two who were carrying them. And they said, “All right. The queen is coming with her hundred maids.” The Muslims that time were, the Muslim king was having his drinks and things, very happy that the queen is going to come. So these people went there and came out of their palanquins and started fighting. They had told these women that “In case we win, by five o’clock in the morning we’ll lit a fire and you will see the fire, then you’ll know that we have won the case. But if we do not win, then you should know for definite that we have not won the battle.” They were only, say, four hundred people or six hundred people, and thousands were with this man and he had guns and cannons and everything.

So they started fighting. In that fight that Muslim king won because he had so much of power, and most of these people died. Even the king was killed. There was no fire lit at five o’clock, so these women saw there’s no fire lit. So they made a huge big platform, a pyre, they climbed down to the pyre and lit the fire, and they all died. Three thousand women died, because they didn’t want other men to touch them. Any other man coming and touching them means their chastity is finished.

There are many, many stories of this kind in India. So, how they respected their chastity! It’s easy, you see, to fall to some sort of a, another temptation, but if this is your power, why you should submit yourself to something which is so useless? In Sahaja Yoga we have to realize. Men also must know that if their wives are so chaste and so good, they must respect them. They should also realize that they have also rakhi sisters, which is that we are very chaste. We respect the chastity of a rakhi sister and we do not want to in any way to comply with anyone who does not respect the chastity. Then the men also become chaste. When the women are chaste men also become chaste. And this chastity is your main power, is, this chastity is the one is the power of Shri Ganesha. And when you get this Shri Ganesha’s power, you know how powerful you become with the innocence that is awakened within you.

So without the chastity the women cannot achieve anything in Sahaja Yoga. One has to give up all the past ideas, all the past things, and also the way there is bombardment from the newspapers, from the media, from everything. Recently I read a beautiful book, so big as that, has come out that “Media Versus America”. In that they have said that how this media has put ideas into the heads of women and men, decrying the utility of married life – how they have killed the married life. They marry, then divorce; they marry, then divorce. The same thing goes on all the time.

In Sahaja Yoga, of course, it’s not that bad. We had eighty-six weddings this time. Eighty-six – out of which one was about to fizzle out; that also is established. In Sahaja Yoga it’s much better. People understand the importance of married life. It’s a drama, but also it is tapas: it is a tapasya with which you understand your own powers. I would say a man is like the sun, but a woman is like the Mother Earth. The difference is like this: that the sun shines, gives light, it gives also nourishment to the Mother Earth in a way; and the Mother Earth gives everything, she bears so much of things, she bears all our sins. So a housewife is like the Mother Earth. She gives joy to everyone, to her husband, to her children. She doesn’t think about herself. She doesn’t think, how I could achieve great things through my beauty maybe, through my body, through my education, through my powers that I’ve got – no, she doesn’t. What she thinks: how I can make others powerful, how I can give them power, how I can help them. This is the typical ideology of a woman. If it is not so, then she’s not a woman. I mean, she feels – if somebody says, “I want to come to your house for dinner,” she feels very happy.

“Oh, that’s very good. Now then, what should I cook? What should I do?” This is a woman’s attitude.

Once we had a group of people, about twenty-five of them had come to see Me. I was sitting with them in an open space, and then I sent word to My daughter that they are here and it might be late, so better prepare dinner for them.

After the thing I said, “There dinner is for you extra.”

They said, “How?”

I said, “All right.”

She was so overjoyed, My daughter. She had prepared all kinds of things; her friends also came to help her. And they were surprised, all these foreigners, that “How, Mother, she’s so happy about it? If I tell my wife” – that’s the beginning of Sahaja Yoga – “that even three persons are coming for dinner, she’d go round and round and round …”

I said, “Why?”

“ … and she’d grudge and grumble, and she’d show all her temper with the people.”

I was quite surprised. See, in Sahaja Yoga that’s how we live. We want to give love, and men have to appreciate that love and enjoy that love; whether you are a brother or a husband or a son, any way, the woman’s love is for you. And she gives you that love that makes you absolutely, not only joyous, but also religious. Because it’s a relative thing. If a woman starts misbehaving, that’s the worst for the society: men also start misbehaving. Men, as it is, are extroverts. So to control them, to put them as householders, the women must know how to keep them. It’s not easy to run a house, it’s not easy to run your family, it’s not easy to look after your children – very difficult. And those who have those qualities are the best women and they really achieve it.

I mean, you can think of your mothers, how much they loved you, all the men and the women. Why? Why do you think of your mother so much? Because she sacrificed everything, but without showing that she was sacrificing. She did so much for you, so you could be a woman. Woman’s potential to love is tremendous, tremendous! And this is what we have to learn from Fatima. She gave Her two children to be killed. She knew, because She was after all Vishnumaya; She was the incarnation of Vishnumaya. She knew Her children will be killed, but still She sent Her children, “All right. Doesn’t matter. Even if I know that they are going to die, it’s all right.” Such bravery, such courage, such understanding of the duty of Her children.

Today we remember them as Hassan and Hussein. Supposing She had said, “No, no, no, no, don’t go for the war. Stay at home.” And if She had forced them not to go, then they would not have gone. We would not have talked about them today, isn’t it? In any case, they would have been dead some time, but the death of a hero they got because of their mother. Of course, they were also a kind of incarnations, but the way She gave them absolutely complete encouragement, “Go and fight for the right thing,” because these fundamentalists were trying to bring their fanaticism.

So today is a day I have to tell men also that you must learn to respect a woman who is chaste. Please understand, if your wife is a chaste woman, then you have no right in no way to trouble her. Not that she should be respectable – she should – but you should see that everyone respects her, nobody insults her, should stand by her, be identified with her. But if she’s not a chaste woman and if she is that kind, better keep out. I do not have that much courage to say that “All right. Go ahead with her and I’ll look after.” It’s very difficult. I don’t know what complications might come.

With all these experiences one learns one thing for definite, that woman is much more inward, she has much more powers, she is much more wiser than other people are, if she keeps to her chastity. That’s the point on which all her movement rotates, all her personality rotates. She may be anything. We had women – like there was a lady who was only seventeen years of age, and she became a widow. Widow she became at the age of seventeen, and she fought a very horrible king called as Aurangzeb, and she saw to it that he got paralyzed; and her name was Tarabai.

We have women in India of different, different, say, characters in a way, quite in different, different ways, but they were first and foremost they’re housewives. All their powers were there as housewives. So do not look down upon the housewife. When I’m traveling in the plane, they ask Me, “Mother, what is your profession?”

“Housewife.” My profession is housewife. I’m a housewife of a very, very big family. I’m looking after My children, I’m loving them, they love Me, and this profession is the best, I think, because it is so joy-giving, it’s so beautiful. It’s love. It’s so energy-giving. And at this age also I never feel My age, because I am the Mother of so many of you. And it never comes to My head that I’m old now and I must do so-and-so, I must take rest and I must not do this work again. Because this feeling of love for My children: I have to nourish them, I have to look after them, because all My powers I have to give them. I never try to show off My powers to you in any way. It’s only you who should imbibe all My powers. That’s the only desire I have, that you should be as powerful as Myself.

Of course you discover it that I have powers, that’s different; but as far as I am concerned I want that you should forget as to what powers I have, but you should yourself have all these powers within yourself, so that you can save the world. That’s the only thing I want to give you. And I want to assure you that you all can have everything that I have; only thing if you can retain – simple thing in life – that we have to be righteous people. We cannot play about, we cannot misbehave. Nowadays so many things are coming up, things that men are doing and women are doing; we are not doing.

In the evolutionary process, as we may say that there were some monkeys, chimpanzees that became human beings. But no – in between there were some other human beings that came in, which vanished. So, very few people will become Sahaja yogis, who will be saved. All the rest will be not there: they’ll be neither monkeys nor human beings, finished. These are all self-destroying things which kills the family, which kills the chastity within us, and then we are left high and dry. We are nowhere. We have diseases, we have troubles, we have problems.

So be careful, very, very careful. And this special Puja for Fatima Bi is Puja to Vishnumaya. Also the guilt that works on the left Vishuddhi can be cured if you develop your chastity. You’ll never feel guilty, because that’s such a virtue you have. In that virtue you will never, never feel guilty, and you can stand up to any nonsense because you are standing on the truth of chastity.

Today it’s special day, I would say, when we are worshipping this great ideal of chastity that is Fatima Bi.

May God bless you.

Right, so now we have very few children … How many children we have?

Come along, come along, come along.

Let’s sing the Ganesha Stuthi.

00:45:27
All right, you can sing the Ganesha Stuthi. Let’s say the Ganesha’s mantra, and then we’ll sing the Ganesha Stuthi, and after that we’ll have the hundred-and-eight names …

01:46:22
This stone, feroza, comes from Eilat, and Fatima used to wear quartz, no doubt about it. This one is called as a quartz; it’s called as feroza. And full of it, it’s there in Eilat, so many. She used to wear this feroza, it’s absolutely correct.

01:47:22
Also this, for your information, this … also come from Eilat, also from the same place that She was. So just see the coincidence – exactly, at this time, to come from Eilat. May God bless that … and may there be peace.

01:55:20
There’s another suggestion that everybody cannot go to India, so people can’t get married, you see. So we’re thinking of also organizing marriages, when – during Diwali Puja. But you won’t have such a wide choice, that’s the point is. Doesn’t matter. Those who want to get married should send Me forms filled in, and send it to Guido. And another thing is that we can’t have it in the same elaborate way as we have it in India. We try, but still you know it’s very difficult: it’s a different country. So we’re trying to find out things that can be worked out. In any case we’ll organize the marriages, because you don’t want another type, just a simple type, you want to have Indian style. So I’ll go to India before Diwali, try to organize things for you.

May God bless you.

01:58:01
Thanks very much for everything. I’m sorry I couldn’t get presents for all of you this time.

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